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Jimmy Carter's Distinctly Average Foreign Policy Record Written by Jonathan Provan

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Jimmy Carter's Distinctly Average Foreign Policy Record Written by Jonathan Provan Jimmy Carter's Distinctly Average Foreign Policy Record Written by Jonathan Provan This PDF is auto-generated for reference only. As such, it may contain some conversion errors and/or missing information. For all formal use please refer to the official version on the website, as linked below. Jimmy Carter's Distinctly Average Foreign Policy Record https://www.e-ir.info/2012/04/14/jimmy-carters-distinctly-average-foreign-policy-record/ JONATHAN PROVAN, APR 14 2012 It is time to revisit the foreign policy record of Jimmy Carter, and consider it in the context of both the Cold War and the issue of America’s role in the world. This is a worthwhile task, given the parallels between Carter’s single term in office and where we find ourselves today: the US, with a democrat in the White House, is nearing the end of a period of increasingly unpopular conflict abroad, faces economic uncertainty, and the American decline debate has reared its head yet again in the face of emerging powers. For the Barack Obama administration, a better understanding of Carter’s foreign policy record has obvious benefits. Walter Russell Mead has already warned Obama of the dangers of suffering from ‘the Carter syndrome’.[1] However, the American electorate will do well to similarly take note, as both Carter’s successes and failures in foreign policy can allow them to consider their current president’s performance when it comes to casting their votes at the upcoming presidential election. As such, Carter retains his relevance, 31 years after leaving office. The debate at present is framed by an orthodox/revisionist divide: in the years immediately following his defeat to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election, an orthodox school was established, which criticised Carter for constructing a confused, ill-conceived foreign policy, pursued by an administration that was unprepared and incapable of filling the office of the executive. This is perhaps best represented by Donald Spencer, who dismissed the Carter presidency as a ‘four year experiment in amateurism.’[2] More recently, this position has been challenged by revisionist scholars, most notably John Dumbrell, who have taken a more positive view, suggesting the Carter’s response to the position in which he found himself upon taking office in 1977 was both insightful and far sighted. For Dumbrell, the shortcomings in Carter’s foreign policy were attributable more to practical shortcomings than deficiencies with the president’s personality or the strategy itself. More to the point, these shortcomings should be seen in context. [3] The truth, as is so often the case, is both more complex and more prosaic, but also more interesting. This paper will argue that Carter’s foreign policy was flawed from the outset, as it sought to pursue a series of irreconcilable objectives, through contradictory and inconsistent means, exacerbated by divisions within the administration, and Carter’s personal shortcomings in the field of presidential leadership and organisation. However, it will be conceded that Carter’s foreign policy was not an ‘experiment in amateurism’, and nor was it a total failure, as his record illustrates several important foreign accomplishments. Also, and importantly, his administration bequeathed to his successor a nation that was capable and willing to bring the Cold War to its conclusion. In 1977 this would have seemed an impossible task. Consequently, Carter’s foreign policy can be considered, as Scott Kaufman suggests, as ‘lacklustre,’ or as distinctly average, demonstrative of a post-revisionist viewpoint, which will perhaps come to dominate scholarship concerning Carter in the future.[4] Obama also inherited a nation without a clear sense of purpose in the world, as his predecessor George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and ‘freedom agenda’ became more muted and ultimately disappeared, allowing the absence of an integrative conceptual grand strategy that has characterised the post-Cold War years to return to prominence. If Obama can leave office with a nation that has started to overcome its present troubles, and has the signs of understanding its role in the world, then he will be judged a success by future historians. This is no small task, yet given the importance of US power and an America willing to play an active role in world politics for continued peace and stability, and tackling the numerous global issues that will shape the twenty-first century, it is one that the Obama administration will have to continue to address. E-International Relations ISSN 2053-8626 Page 1/10 Jimmy Carter's Distinctly Average Foreign Policy Record Written by Jonathan Provan The paper will initially contextualise the Carter presidency and outline its foreign policy objectives and strategies, before considering the reasons for their failures, using the illuminating example of the arms control versus human rights dichotomy faced vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. To offer a more balanced perspective, Carter’s foreign policy successes will then be discussed, and suggestions concerning the causes of these accomplishments will be made, before conclusions are drawn, and some lessons for the Obama administration, and future governments, are put forward. Before considering the individual failures and successes of Carter’s foreign policy, it is worth contextualising the state of the US at this time and the analysing the foreign policy strategy Carter and his team developed. In 1976, when Carter was elected, America was in a state of introspective crisis. The scars of Watergate and Vietnam were still fresh, the economy was in recession and experiencing an energy crisis, and Communism appeared to be expanding globally. This situation led Carter himself to describe a ‘crisis of spirit’ in America, which was widely interpreted as describing a state of national ‘malaise.’[5] This situation both constrained and liberated the Carter administration; the memories of Vietnam limited its foreign policy options, particularly concerning military intervention, but there was also an opportunity to provide a break from the past and create a new foreign policy, based on American principles and morals. Consequently, Carter and his foreign policy advisors, in particular Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, embarked on a lofty and idealistic series of foreign policy goals. In particular, according to Vance, the new administration ‘felt confident that for the first time in years, the United States was politically, psychologically and materially capable of offering leadership.’[6] The administration set forth a wide ranging set of targets, centred on, in Vance’s articulation: maintaining strength over the Soviet Union, but not allowing it to dominate the agenda; sensitivity and awareness to all global issues; commitment to human rights; retaining a sense of a long-term vision; and incorporating the public and Congress in foreign policy matters.[7] Essentially, as John Lewis Gaddis noted, Carter was consciously attempting to break away from the previous administration’s foreign policy, which was dominated by Henry Kissinger and his commitment to realpolitik and détente, as well as breaking away from American foreign policy’s preoccupation with containment of the Soviet Union. ‘One senses,’ Gaddis commented, ‘an almost desperate effort to establish a distinctive identity, to escape from the lengthy and intimidating shadow of Henry Kissinger.’[8] However, as one may ascertain from Vance’s summary, Carter’s foreign policy goals were numerous and wide-ranging, to the extent of becoming contradictory and inconsistent. Coupled with Carter’s poor management and infighting in the administration, particularly between Vance and Brzezinski, the successful implementation of this strategy was unlikely at best, inconceivable at worst. Moreover, as Gaddis argues, whilst rhetorically Carter was departing from what had become foreign policy norms of containment, linkage and asymmetrical response, in practice they were continued, especially concerning relations with the USSR and the negotiations of a second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II).[9] The difficulties encountered in implementing such a broad and idealistic strategy is perhaps best demonstrated by the administration’s support of human rights, particularly concerning the Soviet Union, which conflicted with the SALT II negotiations. A commitment to human rights served numerous purposes: on a cognitive level, it appealed to the president’s personal morality; in terms of domestic politics it satisfied both leftists who advocated a principled foreign policy and the emerging neoconservative movement who favoured a more proactive stance against the Soviet Union; and internationally it served to strengthen America’s global standing.[10] As Joshua Muravchik neatly summarised, ‘the issue had resonance, both in Carter’s soul and in the polls.’[11] In practice, however, the limitations of a moralistic foreign policy became evident, as did the contradictions and inconsistencies within Carter’s foreign policy strategy. American criticism of the USSR’s human rights record, particularly concerning dissidents such as Andrei Sahkarov, led to Soviet intransigence in the SALT II negotiations; Carter was attempting to progress from linkage, but he failed to recognise it could work both ways. Indeed, the Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev retorted to the criticisms, ‘we will not tolerate interference in our internal affairs by anyone and under any pretext. A normal development of relations
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